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Ponder on This

Participation vs. OBSERVATION...

"This universe of ours, what is it really? Here we are, centres of consciousness, surrounded by a buzzing confusion which we must try to understand. But we are of the selfsame stuff of the universe -- perhaps ultimately a cloud of energy interacting with other clouds of energy -- and on that account we are in the role more of participants than observers. We cannot distance ourselves from our ambient, hold it at arm's length for impartial scrutiny. This fact has been heavily underlined by modern physics since it sets limits to our knowledge. What we experience is not external reality per se but our interaction with it, so that in a very real sense we are constructing our universe from ourselves."

"The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness, and "consciousness" cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and "will" cannot evolve involuntarily. The evolution of man is the evolution of his power of doing, and "doing" cannot be the result of things which "happen."

-- G. I. Gurdjieff

A Bit of a Bio:

Frederick Woodruff

Astro Inquiry is published in Washington State -- beaming out from Vashon Island. When I was 14 years-old, I made the dogged effort to write to as many astrologers in California as I could, seeing which, if any would take me on as a student. I lucked out with my teachers Ivy Goldstein Jacobson and Margaret Latvala, and studied with them through my high school years. A year later I became a member of Llewellyn George’s Educational Astrology organization in Los Angeles. I helped write, edit and publish the group’s quarterly newsletters... continues

Consultations

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Don’t waste the clarity and prescience of today’s lunation: A new moon in Sagittarius combined with a dynamic Mars Mercury conjunction, a combination that turns up the power of prophecy. If only for a millisecond, catch a glimpse of what lies ahead for you, beyond your normal event horizon, during the upcoming year.

Dreams will be quick, cogent and hectic during the next three nights; flashing glimpses, too, of new paths, new approaches, new peers and helpmates. Take notes. Follow closely.

Be prepared for truth-telling throughout the biosphere as politicians are forced into disclosures. Meanwhile the zealots, imploding on their anger and resentment, set retaliatory moves into high gear. Red alert during your meal tonight as grandma’s wine-buzz helps her cuts loose with some inflammatory family secrets. Read more

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you. — David Whyte

The ongoing Saturn Uranus opposition is a cosmic reminder that the biosphere still remains wickedly dichotomized, despite Barack Obama‘s triumph on election night.

I’ve been calling this recent post-election phase Civil War Reconstruction v2.0. Meaning, once again the South has ‘fallen’ — has lost favor as a participating unit within our democracy. The New York Times recently reported: “What may have ended on Election Day … is the centrality of the South to national politics. By voting so emphatically for Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama — supporting him in some areas in even greater numbers than they did President Bush — voters from Texas to South Carolina and Kentucky may have marginalized their region for some time to come…”

So, how will we meet the fallout? Follow Gandhi‘s advice: “We must always seek to ally ourselves with that part of the enemy that knows what is right.”

On a personal note, tonight’s full moon deserves careful consideration, given the exact square from Neptune that is setting off a fixed sign arabesque. By signs, the full moon activates the Taurus and Scorpio polarity and foments roiling emotional intensity. No two signs of the zodiac are more aligned with the deeper passions of the body and the heart. With Neptune involved we might be putting too much emphasis on fantasy and not enough on the pragmatic. We’re calling the airline to book a trip to Bali but can barely make the mortgage next month. Reality checks are in order.

Not that fantasy is to be shunned. With Neptune, if the rational mind attempts to deny his otherworldly spells and callings, he’ll come through a back door upsetting your sleep with epic dreams or, worse, set you off on a drinking binge. Rituals are in order to honor this burgeoning autumnal passion-fest. Bring it all down a level without dishonoring the impulse. Write a wildly erotic love poem. Take a sick day from work and daydream throughout the afternoon, watching the full moon later in the evening from your back porch. Give Neptune his due. Here’s a wonderful poem by the Norwegian writer Olav H. Hauge to help ease our mind into the different possibilities Neptune communicates:

It’s that dream we carry with us
That something wonderful will happen,
That it has to happen,
That time will open,
That doors will open,
That the mountains will open,
That wells will leap up,
That the dream will open,
That one morning we’ll slip in
To a harbor that we’ve never known.

During this lunation we want the sensual security that Taurus’ garden of delights connotes, that feeling that we’ve found a safe, earthy haven for ourselves — but we are tempted to also engage with the serpent, and enter a more visceral, less “domestic” world of consummation with the mysterious Other. We want the comfort of romance, but also long to experience that which is forbidden, to take a romp in the wild world of taboo. Loyalty vs. licentiousness. How will it all play out?

This is a full moon that opens the floodgates. Passions feel almost irrepressible, off the scale actually, so any mood, be it light or dark, will be amplified and inch towards melodrama. The Taurus Scorpio polarity moves us back and forth between feelings of possession and attachment, to envy, jealousy and sometimes paranoia. The issue is emotional control. Holding the power, or surrendering to it. Try to find a middle path and set the pace slow but sure.

Venus’ out-of-sign conjunction to Pluto telegraphs relationship difficulties. Or at least a challenge to our notions about what makes for a successful relationship. If we have a conventional idea about romance, say from the latest issue of Bride’s magazine, this Venus Pluto co-mingling will show us the darker face of love. For the uninitiated, what appears to be simple on the surface is actually seething and twirling with intrigues and possible betrayals. Planets passing through Pluto’s realm are always taken down, like Persephone’s abduction into Hades, and put through the endurance tests. Trials by fire.

Remind yourself of the following axiom: That which is hidden is often more powerful than that which is visible. We have ideas about how things should be, operate, unfold in our intimate relationships. But Venus married to Pluto says we must learn the following: Beauty is much more than an idyl, pleasing lines, shapes and contours. And love involves a kind of vulnerability that can be devastating should it be double-crossed. And yet that is always the challenge of fully opening to love, that we’ll be taken down, forced to encounter our more regressed emotions: jealousy and rage. Venus with Pluto says: Love and beauty are beguiling and fierce. Not for sissies or the faint-of-heart.

“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from the things she found in gift shops.”–Kurt Vonnegut

There is a way of breathing
that’s a shame and suffocation.
And there’s another way of expiring,
a love-breath that lets you open infinitely.– Rumi

Think fondly of today. You might recall this as the last date where the world as you knew it was like the world that you always knew. “That chef made my eggs just the way I like them.” Happy day!

Tomorrow opens a crack in time. Wild card days. The optometrist advising for the removal of the cataracts. The bank is now closed (again) on Saturdays (and maybe Fridays too). Oh, and dad died suddenly, while getting out of the shower, and you never got to say goodbye.

Tomorrow heralds the exact opposition between Saturn and Uranus, the start of a long two-year match between titans. Father Sky trounces Father Time. But this is also a mirroring dance, a commingling of their seed and shadows. They’re the oddest of lovers, the harshest of enemies (what father and son are not?) Yes, people — it’s the birth of a new world order. Read more